Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The stars, on a desert night

Clouds of Jupiter, seen by Galileo spacecraft
Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination - stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one - million - year - old light. A vast pattern - of which I am a part... What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?”


--Richard Feynmann


2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Some day in the far far distant future, science may indeed explain the universe. But for right now, there's plenty of mystery left.

Rob said...

Albert Einstein was one of the great artists of the 20th century. His eyes saw how matter bends space. He showed us how seeing differently changes reality. It's a sort of poetry.

If you want mystery consider that most of the matter of the universe is contained in spectrums not visible to us. We see everything, and we see nothing.

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau